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Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies is launching two new majors for the fall 2022 semester, an applied data analytics major and an innovation, society and technology major.

Previously, the school offered just one major — information management and technology — with a minor available in information technology, said Bruce Kingma, the school’s director of undergraduate programs.

The degrees were approved by the New York State Education Department in summer 2021 and have started to be advertised to incoming students, Kingma said, though current students who have the appropriate amount of credits have moved into the majors.

Mel Gan, a senior data analytics major, said she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study when she transferred from George Washington University to SU after her freshman year. While she appreciated the theoretical elements of some classes she had taken, she enjoyed problem solving the most.

“Analytics is a lot about people,” Gan said. “How are people using technology to solve problems? And how does technology bridge the management of people? To apply that, analytics is very practical.”

Cali McCoy, a sophomore who’s also in the data analytics major, was undecided about her major when she first came to SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. After taking classes in the iSchool under Jeff Rubin, an associate professor of practice, she realized she was fascinated with the technical aspects that the new major would provide, as well as its flexibility.

“I feel like they’re trying to create a major to prepare for careers that maybe haven’t been made yet, which is interesting to me because I don’t know specifically what I want to do,” McCoy said. “So just having that flexibility and being able to tweak the major to any career … that was very enticing to me.”

Kingma said the programs allow students to specialize their education in a way they couldn’t before. While students could have a concentration in data analytics previously, he said, the new major allows them to dive deeper into the data for a more immersive experience, while IST is more research-oriented.

Last fall, nine students with non-iSchool majors transferred into the data analytics major, while two transferred into IST, Kingma said. Though the school did little marketing to promote the new majors, he anticipates that enrollment in those programs would grow over the next five years.

“I know there’s a very strong job market for folks that want to go into data analytics,” Kingma said. “We’ll have a few more students that are in the IST program that are either interested in more of a research degree or are more focused on the impact of information on society.”

Published on February 8, 2022 at 9:56 pm

Contact Richard: [email protected] | @richardperrins2